BACOLOD CITY – Bacolod Lone District Cong. Greg G. Gasataya is writing a letter to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) that will be endorsed by Health Sec. Francisco Duque III and other health execs to press for additional budget required for the upgrade of the tertiary level government hospital based here.
Gasataya met with Duque and other health undersecretaries Thursday morning amid hearings by the Congressional Committee on Appropriations of which he is vice chairman.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed Republic Act 1140 August 28 that approved the increase of the bed capacity of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital from 400 to 1,000. The law also provides for the allocation of additional funds for the purpose.
The hospital is also known as the Western Visayas Regional Hospital.
Gasataya told DNX from Manila that the allocation worth millions of pesos was supposed to form part of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) but the National Expenditure Program or NEP was submitted to Congress prior to Duterte’s approval.
The budget department submits the NEP to Congress to “assist in the review and deliberation of the proposed national budget,” according to the website of the Department of Budget and Management.
“I have already raised this to the DOH during the budget briefing for its inclusion in next year’s budget,” Gasataya pointed out.
Hospital bed capacity is defined by Reference.MD as the number of beds which a hospital “has been designed and constructed to contain.”
The solon’s mother, Thelma, a church worker gave birth to him in the health facility.
